Design and Development of a Nonintrusive Pressure Measurement System for Pipeline Monitoring

Abstract

In recent years, wireless sensor network systems have increasingly been used to monitor infrastructure health. Advances in electronics and sensing systems have enabled the development of various pressure-sensing methods for pipe-pressure monitoring. This article presents laboratory-based test results as part of the development and validation of a pipeline pressure-monitoring method based on force sensitive resistors (FSR). Additionally, to validate the data, the proposed pressure-sensing method is compared with a commercially available direct-pressure sensor. Analysis of the data shows a significant correlation (correlation factor = 0.9928) between the commercial sensor and the proposed sensor. These results showed that the proposed method has an acceptable accuracy and reliability even though it is not ultimately intended for absolute-pressure measurements, but for monitoring relative pressure changes in pipes.